


d-sides and rarities

by Deisderium



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Assassination attempts, Camping, Courtship, Cross Cryptid Romance, Explicit Sexual Content in chapter 3, Friends to Lovers, Inspired by Twitter, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Strangers to Lovers, Tender Hand Jobs, Theater - Freeform, Tumblr Prompt, Witch Sarah Rogers, Witch Steve Rogers, bad at tents, dumbassery, dumbasses to lovers, found cat, lost cat, meet ugly, merman bucky barnes, omg they were roommates, rock star Steve Rogers, shrinkyclinks, terrible gifts, violinist bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:35:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24378826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deisderium/pseuds/Deisderium
Summary: This is a place to collect mostly unrelated tumblr/twitter prompts. I'll change the rating if needed and add tags for each chapter.Ch 1: Roommates to Lovers, TCh 2: Gloating about Roomates to Lovers, TCh 3: Cross-Cryptid Romance, Merman Bucky, Witch Steve, ECh 4: Stucky + Peter Parker, looking for Liho, GCh 5: Shrinkyclinks assassination meet-ugly, TCh 6: tour bus + sharing, TCh 7: theatre + quiet, backstage + quiet, curtains + theater, TCh 8: lake + rain, TCh 9: beach + tiddies, TCh 10: forest + tent, TCh 11: balcony + fairy lights, T
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 368
Kudos: 463
Collections: Sweet and Gentle Steve/Bucky





	1. love at thirst sight

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr and twitter, both as @deisderium, if you ever want to shoot me an ask!
> 
> ETA: I have updated the rating to reflect the highest rating in a prompt, HOWEVER!!! Each chapter will have a note at the beginning stating the specific rating for that chapter. <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is T! The prompts are: 
> 
> Part 1: HC - since Steve and Bucky are canonically dumb they don't realise they are living with the most gorgeous guy. They have no clue why other people fall head over heels for them. Bucky one day reaches close to check if Steve got something in eye and notices his 'friend' has longest possible eyelashes and very pink full lips with a bright unblemished skin. Steve hasn't noticed anything yet.
> 
> Part 2: HC Part 2 Steve kneels to tie Buckys shoelaces in a morning run since Buckys hands are full of flowers /kittens /coffee. When he looks up Buckys hair is little messy and light falls just the right angle and Bucky looks so tall and his legs look so strong and .... Also R. I. P Bucky because Steve is wearing gym thot shirt and air is a bit chilled so when you look from above.. Huh.. Oh.. 🍉

**Bucky suddenly realizes Steve is beautiful:**

"Ouch,  _ christ," _ Bucky hears from across the apartment, accompanied by what sounds like an actual groan of pain. He stands, wondering how Steve can possibly have hurt himself sketching on the couch. It's a special kind of dumbass that can hurt himself while sitting perfectly still.

He turns the corner from the kitchen to their living room and sees Steve hunched over, rubbing at his eyes.

"What happened?" he asks.

"Got something in my eye," Steve says, apparently intent on digging whatever it is further in beneath his eyelids.

"Get your hands away, dumbass, you're just making it worse," Bucky tells him. "Let me see." He leans over Steve, still sitting on the couch, sketchbook abandoned to the side, and pulls Steve's fingers away from his face.

Steve forces his watery eyes open, and Bucky gently pulls a loose eyelash out of his eye. He absently notes that Steve's eyes look even bluer filled with tears and looking hopefully up at him.

"Got it," Bucky says. "No wonder it hurt, your eyelashes are, like, ten feet long."

Steve blinks rapidly to clear his eyes a few times, and Bucky thinks that he was only barely exaggerating--Steve has the longest eyelashes he's seen on a man or a woman, even spiked together with tears.

"Thanks, man," Steve says when he's finished blinking. Bucky's still above him, looking a little down on those as mentioned very blue eyes, long eyelashes, very high cheekbones, square jaw, and lips that suddenly seem very full and very pink.

"Any time," Bucky mumbles, standing up straight because getting any closer would be weird, right? He's looked at Steve thousands of times. They've been friends since they were children, and now they’ve lived together for years, and he knows Steve’s face almost better than he knows his own. How can he never have noticed the way all his features are gorgeous, and when you put them together they're even  _ more  _ gorgeous? This should be illegal.

Steve, of course, doesn't notice Bucky's sudden panicked appreciation of his best friend, because they're very used to each other and he's obviously not having any kind of panic about him, Bucky, because he, Steve, was looking up at Bucky's nose hairs while Bucky was looking down and being struck by the fact that Steve has the eyes (and eyelashes) of an actual angel and lips that would tempt the devil himself.

Then Steve leans over to get his sketchbook, and oh no, that's worse. His shirt rides up over his side and Bucky gets a good look at the cut of his hipbones and the curve of his abs, and what could, possibly, have remained a strictly aesthetic appreciation slides quickly into something else as Bucky pictures, vividly, what it would be like to lick a line over the sensitive skin of Steve's hip.

"Gotta go," he says. Steve just nods, because he's already back in his sketchbook and thank god not paying any attention to Bucky and the sudden boner he's sporting.

Bucky goes back to his room and flings himself on the bed.

_ What the actual fuck, _ he asks himself.

Sadly, he doesn't have an answer. 

  
  


**Steve realizes that Bucky is beautiful:**

Steve's always loved a morning run. He spends time at the gym, but there's really nothing like the feel of his feet pounding against the pavement, the soft, quiet time before the sun is truly risen, that gray light slowly turning gold as the sun gets higher.

Even better, Bucky's started coming with him.

Bucky likes to run--maybe not as much as Steve does--but he's never been much of a morning person, which is why Steve was so surprised when he expressed an interest in coming with Steve on his run. Steve had said yes, of course. They're best friends, and Steve has never once in his life turned down the opportunity to spend more time with his best friend.

Even if Bucky's been acting kind of weird lately.

Steve doesn't know what to make of it. They've never been shy around each other--it's hard to be shy around someone you've been friends with since you were seven--but recently, Bucky's been ducking his head and blushing when Steve says things, and Steve can't tell why, and the other day Steve took his shirt off after they got back from the gym, and Bucky had turned bright red and immediately left the room.

But maybe he knows he's been acting kind of shy and he wants to try and get back to normal. Steve misses their normal.

They've been running together for a couple of weeks by now, and Steve knows that Bucky isn't much for conversation until they've had their post-run coffee. They finish their run, get their coffees (and breakfast) from the place with the good bagels, and they're about to turn toward their apartment when Bucky says, "Wait. Did you hear that?"

Steve looks at him. Bucky's face has a look of intense concentration. "I didn't hear anything," Steve says.

"Shhh." Bucky tilts his head, and then Steve does hear it, a squeaking sound. Bucky shoves his coffee and the paper bag with their bagels into Steve's hands and ducks into the alley the squeaking seems to be coming from. Steve follows him, of course, and then watches as Bucky ducks behind the dumpster.

He comes out holding a struggling and bedraggled and  _ tiny  _ lump of white fur.

"Did you find a rat?" Steve asks. He receives only a glare in answer.

"She's a  _ cat, _ dumbass. Get your eyes checked." Bucky cradles the tiny creature to his broad chest with his right arm, and Steve has to admit that the big man with the tiny kitten is pretty freaking cute. Bucky carefully bends down to pick up his coffee, and then hesitates once his hands are full.

"I'll get the bagels," Steve says, but Bucky shakes his head.

"My shoelaces are untied," he says. "Can you hold her for a second?" He shifts to transfer the kitten, and then winces as her claws dig in.

"I've got a better idea," Steve says. He sets his coffee and the bag on the ground and drops to one knee. "I'll just tie it for you."

It only takes him a second to pull Bucky's shoelaces tight. He looks up at Bucky once he's knotted the lace, and says, "There you go," but his voice sounds a little weak on the last word.

For good reason, as it turns out. Bucky looks--Bucky looks  _ beautiful. _ The morning has hit that perfect light. It limns Bucky's tousled curls, turning the brown to gold around the edges, etches out the sharp lines of his cheekbones and the strong slash of his eyebrows.Steve's at the right height to really contemplate Bucky's muscular thighs, the width of his chest and the curve of his bicep where his arm is crooked around the little cat.

But it's the look in Bucky's eyes that really gets to Steve. Those blue eyes are looking down at Steve with an expression that's somewhere between longing and hunger, stamped all over his face like a brand.

Oh, Steve thinks.  _ Oh.  _ He's been an idiot for not realizing how lovely Bucky is, and an even bigger idiot for not noticing the way that Bucky's been looking at him. All of a sudden all of the blushes and embarrassment and leaving the room make complete sense.

"Buck," Steve says, and rises to his feet, ignoring the coffee and the bagels for the moment. Busky looks panicked for a moment, and Steve can tell because he's thinks he's been caught out--which, of course, he has, but Steve doesn't want him to feel anxious about Steve's response. That's the last thing he wants.

"I think I've been missing what's right in front of me for a long time," Steve says. "Tell me if I've got this wrong."

He leans forward to kiss Bucky, moving slow so Bucky has time to duck away or tell him to stop. But Bucky doesn't; Bucky leans forward, leans into the kiss, and it's everything Steve didn't know he wanted, soft and a little hungry and right. He cups his hand along Bucky's jaw, feels stubble over soft skin, and it's perfect.

Even if Bucky's arms are full of cat and coffee.

Bucky pulls back after a minute, but he's smiling. "Why don't take this girl home and eat breakfast, and we can do that again when I can use my hands?"

Steve picks up his coffee and their food. He can't seem to stop smiling. He knows they have to talk about it, too, but it feels so easy, like the last puzzle piece clicking into place. "Sounds like a good idea to me, Buck."

And that's exactly what they do.


	2. a brunch of idiots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is G! a little epilogue to love at thirst sight, based on this ask: For your hc, could we see Bucky talking about it with Sam after he realises and Sam just looses it ("no shit your boy is hot, where have you been??").

Bucky feels like he's floating on air. The last couple of weeks have been amazing--once he and Steve realized the way they felt about each other, they'd gotten together really fast, and they've hardly left the apartment since, just enjoying the time together--not getting to know each other, because there's no one Bucky knows better, but getting to know each other in this new way.

Natasha had called it a sex fest when she texted him  _ (come get brunch with me and Sam if you can pull yourself away from your sex fest, Steve too) _ and, well, she wasn't wrong. If he's the last one there because he could barely stop kissing Steve in time to get out the door, he doesn't have to admit it.

He slides into the table, where Sam and Natasha are already waiting for him, for reasons which he will not be explaining and can't be blamed for.

"Nice to see you again," Natasha drawls. "Steve couldn't make it?"

"He stopped by his ma's," Bucky explains. "He'll catch up with us in a little." Steve hadn't seen his ma any more than Bucky had made their last couple of friend dates over the past two weeks. Bucky will admit that they've been a little wrapped up in each other.

"Whatever you're thinking, stop it," Sam says. "That look on your face is disgusting."

"It's called a smile, Sam." Bucky picks up the menu and glances over it, not that he really needs to. They've been getting brunch here for years.

"It's smug as hell," Sam grumbles, and then there's a pause while the waiter comes over and gets their order. Bucky had asked Steve if he wanted him to order for him, but Steve hadn't been sure how long he'd be talking to Sarah, whose kindness wouldn't keep her from lovingly interrogating the shit out of her son. Bucky was all right with waiting for his own interrogation the next time he visited when she'd already gotten most of it out of her system with Steve.

The waiter leaves and Natasha leans forward. "So, you've got to tell me how all of this happened. I've been thinking that you and Steve would see how perfect you are for each other for years, but I'd kind of given up hope on seeing it happen any time soon. What changed?"

"This is going to sound really stupid," Bucky says. He can feel his face heating up with his blush. "But, uh, I was helping him get something out of his eye, and I guess I was just close enough to his face that it hit me." 

"What," Nat says. "Violins played, the clouds parted, and you realized that you loved him?"

"Ahahahaha, no." Bucky puts his hands over his face for a minute. "I'd just never noticed how attractive he was before."

Then Bucky gets to experience what it feels like for two of his closest friends to laugh at him.

"You--you never--" Natasha dissolves into a puddle of giggles as the waiter drops off their drinks.

"Do you have vision problems you never told us about?" Sam is chortling, clutching his chest as if mirth is giving him a heart attack. "Where have you been? No shit, your boy is hot. Dumbass."

"Okay, okay," Bucky says, not at all grumpily, he's sure.

"Here's to you finally pulling your head out of your ass," Natasha says, and holds up her mimosa. They all clink glasses, and Bucky thinks that champagne and orange juice taste a little like sunshine, a little like joy.

"So then you told him about it, right?" Sam asks.

"Bold of you to assume that I would communicate like an adult," Bucky says. "No, we were out running a little later, and I guess he had a similar kind of moment of realization and I could--this sounds dumb, but I could see it on his face, and I guess he could see it on mine."

There's silence for a moment.

"The two of you are a matched pair of idiots," Sam proclaims.

Bucky shrugs. He can't argue about it. It took them a while, sure, but they got there in the end.

"So you could see, and then, what--you kissed him?" Natasha raises an eyebrow, and Bucky grins.

"No, because my hands were full of kitten."

"Kitten?" Sam echoes.

"Want to see pictures of the cat we adopted?" Bucky's already going for his phone. They're not going to get out of brunch without cooing over Alpine, or else.

"You're far too young to be parents," Natasha says, but she reaches for his phone.

Bucky leans back and takes another sip of his drink, perfectly content to take whatever shit his friends throw at him while he waits for his matching idiot to show up. 


	3. he's a catch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This started as a prompt on tumblr--"modern badass mer stucky!" but when i was writing part 2 it got a little out of hand, so this is significantly expanded from what i posted there.
> 
> In which Steve the witch meets Bucky the merman and a courtship ensues. <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL i intended this for Mermay but it will have to be fore mer June because *waves hands at the world.* 
> 
> Also i kind of hesitate to post something when the world feels like it's on fire, but fic has been a welcome escape for me, so i hope this is for you too. 
> 
> The original tumblr fic was T but this rolled right over into M/E. I have updated the tags so check them out!

Steve knows that he goes hard. He's full tilt all the time, and it's wearing for most people. But he can't stop when he sees something going wrong. He doesn't like bullies and there are bullies all around.

Case in point: today.

After the class he TA'ed, he and Wanda had been cleaning up the room where Life Drawing 101 had been held, and some absolute entitled fucko had assumed that because she modeled nude for art class, she was looking for a dudebro to fuck her, and he hadn't liked the sound of no. 

Steve had gotten in his face long enough for Wanda to get out of there, and Wanda had thankfully gotten Professor Erskine, but Steve had taken a few hard hits in the interim. His friend Natasha has shown him how to fight—specifically how to fight when you're the smaller person—but his attempts at sneaky moves hadn't saved him from a black eye and a split lip when the other guy had at least half a foot and fifty pounds on him.

It's all right. Well, it's not all right, but he's not sorry he got involved, and he'd rather have a shiner than have Wanda get hurt. She's a good person, and a good friend.

Anyway, she'd given him some arnica for the bruise, and Proferssor Erskine had gently asked him to please be careful but also told him that he was a good man, and he's wandered off to his favorite place with his sketchbook to try to let the adrenaline bleed out of him and regains his equilibrium.

The Brooklyn Bridge Park has a lot of great views, but more importantly, it's close enough to the water that he can listen to the sound of it. The tide has had a pull on him his whole life; he can't explain it, but since his father's death when he was a child, he's found even more comfort in coming here. It's fall, and it's not really warm, but he finds the little bridge he likes and heads down along the water a little ways, away from the path. It's quieter here—fewer people. He makes himself comfortable on some of the big stones that line the path and settles in to sketch.

Steve's wearing a black tee and ripped skinny jeans and a belt with silver spikes on it to match the barbell through his eyebrow. The blue and purple streaks in his hair match the frames of his glasses. He's got a bomber jacket, too, because it's chilly when you're sitting still to draw.

He draws the trees across the way and uses the flat of his pencil to block in waves, the reflection of buildings on the water, an object floating in the water—

Wait a minute, that object is someone's head. Who the fuck would be swimming in the East River? In _October?_

Steve stands up and sets his sketchbook aside, dithering. Do they need help? Did they somehow fall in the water or something?

The movement seems to catch the swimmer's eye, because they turn and look straight at Steve. The distance is too far for Steve to make out details, but he swears they hold each other's gaze for a few seconds, and then the other disappears beneath the waves.

Steve stares, waiting for the person to resurface, wondering already if he somehow imagined the whole thing. He finds himself holding his breath along with the person, trying to figure out how long before they'll have to gasp for air, even though with his shitty lungs, he should know better.

"You look like you're about to pass out," someone says from by his feet.

He jumps a little, startled, and looks down to see a man resting his folded arms on one of the rocks by his feet. His dark hair is slicked back from his head, drops of water trickling down his very high cheekbones, and his torso disappears into the river. There's no way he could possible have swum so far that fast, but Steve's sure it's the swimmer. He sits down quickly to get on the same level as the man.

"How are you not freezing?" he blurts out. It's around sixty degrees—very comfortable for sitting and drawing, fucking cold if you're in the water.

The man shrugs. "It's not that cold compared to the deep water."

"The deep—?" Steve has no idea what that's supposed to mean. 

The man smiles at him, revealing pearl-white, too-sharp teeth. He straightens out his arms, and Steve can't help but but note that they're very muscular. Geometric tattoo bands wrap both his biceps, flexing with his movements. Steve swallows, but then his burgeoning thirst takes a sharp right into complete bewilderment as an enormous set of tail fins lift out of the water.

"Is that—" Steve can't even get the words out.

The man smiles at him. The light catches on a thin silver ring on his lower lip. He heaves himself out of the water so Steve can take in the place where his tail joins his waist because he's an actual fucking mermaid apparently.

Well. He owes his mother an apology. Sarah Rogers is a witch—that, he never doubted. He's seen her cast spells. But she told him there were supernatural creatures in the world, and he'd scoffed. You learn somethign new every day.

"I'm Steve," he tells the mermaid—merman? "Steve Rogers."

"I'm called Bucky in the air," the man—Bucky—says. He leans up and uses cool, gentle fingers to trace the edge of Steve's black eye. "What happened to you?"

"Got in a fight with a real asshole," Steve says, not without satisfaction.

"Do you get in fights a lot?" Bucky asks, smiling. He pulls his fingers away and Steve finds he already misses the touch.

"Only when people deserve it," Steve tells him.

"That's a good quality in a mate," Bucky tells him very seriously.

Steve chokes on air. "Really?" he manages, after a moment.

"Oh, yes," Bucky says. He tosses his hair back. It's dried enough that little strands of it escape and frame his face. It's a good look on him, but then Steve has yet to see a look that's not good on him. "You're pretty and a fighter. I want to court you."

 _Pretty?_ Steve can feel himself blushing. It's not the word he'd use to describe himself. "What does that mean?"

"Come back here tomorrow. I'll bring you a gift, and we can talk." Bucky bites his lip and smiles up at Steve.

"We can talk right now," Steve says. A gift? Hmmm. He'll have to think of something he can give to Bucky that will be all right under water. "And if you hold still, I'll draw you."

"You're an artist?" Bucky visibly perks up. Steve shows him the drawing he was working on and Bucky is gratifyingly impressed by it. Steve flips to a new page and starts sketching him.

"I'm a proficient hunter," Bucky says. "I'd be a good provider."

"Yeah?" Steve thinks it's pretty endearing that Bucky wants to make sure Steve knows he's a good partner. "What else do you like to do?"

They talk for almost two hours, until Steve realizes he's got to leave to make it back to campus for his next class.

"Same time tomorrow?" Steve asks. He'd thought this was kind of a joke, Bucky looking for a mate, but actually he really likes him, and he definitely wants to see him again. They agree to meet, and Steve walks off, whistling.

The next day finds him waiting by the water, happy and relieved when he sees a head of dark hair coming up to the surface.

Steve brings him the drawings he made yesterday: the river and Bucky himself, cleaned up and with more details—laminated. Bucky brings him a necklace made of delicate shells and links of chain that he shyly confesses he made himself.

They talk for hours, again, and Steve's face kind of hurts from smiling so much.

It's a start.

🧜

**part two**

Bucky is—well, he wouldn't want to say nervous. He wouldn't want to _be_ nervous. Sharks and krakens smell fear nearly as well as they smell blood, and he has no desire to be kept from his errand today.

He's swimming from the deep water to the shallows to meet with Steve Rogers for—well, he stopped counting how many days they’ve been together some time ago, but the full moon has pulled the tide higher three times since he met his beloved.

He knows that Steve has reservations. Steve is a bright creature of the air, while Bucky comes from the dark part of the sea. Bucky can admit that when most mer think of a mate, they think of someone who can spend all their time in the water, who can come to the deepest depths and bow to the sea queen.

But Bucky's never been tied to the water in his heart in that way. He's always been drawn to the shallows, to the parts of the world where the salt meets the shore, where the water will hardly keep the sun from burning the flesh of one accustomed to the depths. He doesn't think he yearns for danger, exactly, but he can't deny that it appeals to him, and his mate is dangerous.

Steve has told him more than once of the fights he gets in despite the fact that he's usually smaller than his opponents. He doesn't let the odds stop him, and that's dangerous, and he doesn't let his opponents' size intimidate him, and _that's_ dangerous, and most of all, his quick mind can outthink any number of people who rely on physical size to win, and that's the most dangerous of all. 

Bucky thinks of him as a box jellyfish, really; smaller than most of the predators of the deep, but terribly deadly. He thinks—he hopes—that Steve will be pleased by that when he tells him.

After two months, he has an idea of what Steve likes. He's brought Steve jewelry and food, and Steve has accepted every gift with an appropriate amount of appreciation. He's tried to praise Steve's efforts in return, because why would he not? They both want to please each other, which is an excellent way for lovers to be. Even if they’re not exactly lovers, not yet—when they can only meet on the boundary between shore and water, there’s not been opportunity for more than kissing—not that he’s complaining. He likes every moment spent with Steve. 

It's different this visit. He's going to meet Steve's mother, who's a witch. Steve is a witch, too, he's given to understand, but he's told Bucky, both directly and by the way his eyes light up and his voice gets soft with something like awe when he talks about his mother's gift, that he himself is not much of a witch, or at least he doesn't consider himself to be so.

He had told Bucky at their last meeting that he would have a surprise for him, in addition to bringing his mother to meet him. Bucky is delighted. Bucky is also somewhat nervous, because he wants to make a good impression on his beloved's progenitor. It's early yet in their courtship, but he'd be lying if he said he hadn't thought about introducing Steve to his mother also, as tricky a proposition as that's likely to be. The Sea Queen doesn't leave the depths very often, and Steve's body is much more fragile than Bucky's own. The air is a kindlier medium to swim through than water, particularly in the depths where the crushing pressure of all the water destroys even creatures who are perfectly adapted to the shallows. Bucky is fortunate, he has often thought, to be able to breathe not only air and water, but to have the freedom of both the shallows and the depths.

He sees Steve waiting at their usual spot when his head reaches the water. And he can make out another figure standing at Steve's shoulder. His heart beats a little faster, and he ducks back beneath the surface to swim where he's fastest.

In honor of the occasion, his sister Becca has braided his hair into a tight crown that will look good in either element and adorned his braids with pearls and coral. His wrists are wrapped in gold, and a thin chain circles his waist, the ends tipped in coral and set to rest invitingly at the place where his human skin joins the scales of his tail.

He thinks—he hopes—that he is appropriately bedecked to meet Steve's parent.

He breaks out of the water a polite two body lengths away to make them both aware of his presence. If it were just Steve, he would pop up close to him, if he weren't sketching, but that sort of teasing isn't appropriate for Sarah Rogers, who he hasn't met yet.

Steve waves cheerfully at him, and Sarah Rogers is smiling widely, her face warm and welcoming. Bucky's shoulders relax minutely, and his fins ruffle a little in relief, but at least they won't be able to see that beneath the water. He closes the distance, and rests his elbows on the rocks as he does when talking to Steve. He has hopes that when the weather is warmer, Steve will come swimming with him. It's hard to carry out a courtship when it's so difficult for the two of them to touch.

"Ma, this is Bucky," Steve says, smiling. "Bucky, this is Sarah Rogers, my mother."

Sarah Rogers kneels down so she can talk to him. "It's so nice to meet you, Bucky," she says. "Steve's told me a lot about you."

"And I have heard much about you," he says, which is true, because Steve talks about his mother all the time with an easy affection that Bucky can only approve of. "I brought you a gift," he says, and offers her the necklace that he made of purple pearls that he himself has collected over the years. He is proud of the workmanship, and can only hope that she approves.

"It's beautiful," she tells him, and clasps it about her neck immediately, which pleases him. "And I have something for you." She and Steve exchange a conspiratorial look, and Bucky thinks perhaps this is the surprise that Steve made mention of. Sarah opens her purse and pulls out a small box wrapped in brightly colored paper. Bucky only knows what this is because Steve has brought him gifts presented the same way. It is a charming custom, and he has put some thought into how he might make a comparable presentation when it comes time to give each other more significant gifts, but he confesses, he hadn't thought of it for Sarah's gift, and he wishes he had.

He carefully unpicks the brightly colored paper, which he is charmed to see is full of images of fish, somewhat stylized, but no less delightful for it. When he's pulled away the paper and taken the top off the box, he's gratified to see that Sarah, too, thought of pearls. The one that she's given him is a lustrous gray in color, a solitary pearl wrapped in a sinuous silver setting, suspended from a chain. But it's not only beautiful, he can tell just from touching it. It throbs with power against his skin, a different flavor than any sea witch's token. It doesn't taste of brine and blood, but of a cool breeze, and some scent he doesn't know, something sweet and faintly purple.

"Thank you," he says, running a finger over the pearl. This is lovely." He hesitates to put it on, though, feeling the power within it. "Should I wear it in the water?"

She smiles at him kindly. "It's perfectly safe to wear in the water. When you're on land, though, if you breathe on it, it will grant you legs for the space of a day. Breathe on it again if you wish to return to a natural shape any sooner than that."

He stares at her, completely flabbergasted. "Thank you," he breathes. "This is a powerful gift." He carefully undoes the clasp, and starts to put it around his chest, but Steve catches his eye.

"Let me," Steve says, and Bucky bows his head and shivers against the hot feel of Steve's fingers at the nape of his neck.

Sarah smiles, pleased. "It's my pleasure to make it for you."

"The necklace is beautiful, but the true gift is more time with your son."

Her smile goes wider, even as Steve ducks his head. Bucky can see him blushing still when he finishes with the clasp and comes back to where Bucky can see him.

A flash of some darker color swirls across her blue eyes, so similar to Steve's, and Bucky thinks to himself that he has done even better than he thought. Such a powerful witch's son is an even more suitable mate.

Steve pats a backpack next to him. "I brought you a change of clothes," he says. "I thought if you want, maybe I could show you around."

"And if you have time," Sarah adds, "you could come over for dinner."

"There's nothing I'd like better," Bucky says truthfully.

🧜

Bucky isn't sure what the best part of the day is.

It's certainly off to a good start when Sarah leaves them to their own devices and Bucky breathes on the pearl. He feels a strange, disconcerting sensation as his tail takes on a pale purple glow and then reforms into the sort of legs that Steve has. Although maybe a bit bigger, Bucky observes, in proportion to his torso. 

He stands up and wobbles a little on unsteady feet. But Sarah is not only a very powerful witch, but a very thoughtful and thorough one as well, because it doesn't take long for Bucky to adjust to the movements of this body, to figure out how to walk on two feet instead of swimming with his tail. It's strange, and he stumbles a little if he thinks about it too hard, but he doesn't fall, and if he lets his body just do what it likes, he can locomote just fine. He bends his legs at the center joints, noticing the way his feet flex along with them. It's absolutely fascinating.

"Here," Steve says in a somewhat strangled voice, and holds out the bag of clothing. He's gone a remarkable shade of pink, so dark it's nearly red, and he seems to be trying with limited success to keep his eyes on Bucky's face.

Bucky might not know everything about having a completely human body, and he wouldn't say he's all that well versed in human customs, but he's learned a bit over the last two months, and he's pretty sure Steve likes what he sees. If Bucky were in the water, he knows exactly how he'd twist his tail to make sure that Steve was looking at him, but since he's not, he takes his time getting dressed, pulling each garment on slowly, and, he hopes, seductively.

"You're doing this on purpose," Steve says. Bucky is heartened to note that he sounds hopelessly fond as he does.

"Well, yes," Bucky says. "Is it working?"

"Yes," Steve says. He's smiling, and there's still color in his cheeks. Good. Once Bucky is appropriately clothed, he turns and holds out his hands, inviting Steve to inspect him.

"You look wonderful," Steve assures him. And then, he takes Bucky's hands and gently pulls him closer. Bucky's heart beats a little faster. They've kissed before, Steve leaning down, and Bucky leaning up out of the water. This is different.

Steve tugs him close, and Bucky is startled and amused to note that this time, _he's_ leaning down, because Steve is a good half a head shorter than he is. Their mouths press together, and Steve's lips are soft, and the faint stubble on his jaw is slightly rough, and it feels so good. Without Bucky's conscious decision, suddenly their arms are around each other, their bodies pressed tight against one another, and oh, yes, Bucky likes this very much.

Steve's hands slide down his back, hesitating for a moment over the chain at his waist, invisible beneath the shirt Steve provided, then hook into the waistband of his jeans. Bucky wonders for a moment if Steve is going to take him out of the clothes he just put on, but then Steve steps back, a faint smile on his face.

"I thought I could show you around, if you want," he says, and while part of Bucky would very much like to just stay here and keep doing exactly what they're doing, he does want to see where his beloved lives.

They go to a museum, to see art that has Bucky squinting because it's so different from what he knows, and a restaurant that Steve says is one of his favorites, which is delightful, because the food is, naturally, entirely different to anything else that Bucky's ever eaten. There are many fish that Bucky's people eat raw, and most of the rest are cooked in the water that jes from volcanic jets, and Bucky's only eaten things cooked in a dry heat on very rare occasions. Bread and pastry are things he'd never really conceived of, and the results are completely delightful.

But after that is even better, because Steve takes Bucky home to his apartment, and then Bucky gets to see where Steve lives. It's not a large place, certainly not relative to the Sea Queen's palace, but it's comfortable for one land dweller living alone. Most importantly, to Bucky's mind anyway, all the gifts he's given Steve are prominently displayed.

The necklace he'd first given Steve is around Steve's neck, as it is every time Bucky sees him. But the other things he's brought him, the conch shell, the sea silk tapestry, the coral goblets inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the bottle of salt wine inset with polished stones—all of them are visible, and it warms Bucky's chest to think of Steve looking around to see the things that Bucky's given him, and any guests seeing the clear proof that Steve is wanted, that Steve is cared for.

Steve is, at the moment, looking at Bucky a little nervously; waiting, Bucky realizes, for Bucky's judgment on his home.

"It's wonderful," Bucky says, and whatever tension was in Steve's shoulders leaches away.

"It's not much," Steve says.

"It's yours," Bucky says softly. "It's very comfortable." Steve ducks his head in a way that Bucky finds absolutely charming, and gets even more flustered when Bucky strolls around inspecting the art on the walls. Bucky recognizes much of it as being Steve's, so he compliments it lavishly, in part because it's beautiful and in part to make Steve blush.

Steve's apartment has three rooms, a combination living room and kitchen, a short hallway with a bathroom, and Steve's bedroom, which he shows to Bucky almost bashfully. There's a bed, which is neatly made, a chair, which has laundry obscuring the cushion, and a drawing table stacked with works in progress. There are reference photos and drawings taped up on the walls around it, and it's by the room's sole window, where Steve can get the best light, Bucky presumes, or stare out the window while he's looking for inspiration. All in all, it's a delightful room.

It becomes even more delightful when the two of them are lying on the bed, kissing and running their hands over each other's bodies. There's never been the opportunity for this sort of thing in the park, of course, both because Bucky couldn't get out of the water without revealing his tail, and because the whole place is rather public.

But now, lying back on Steve's soft comforter, Bucky discovers that he really, really likes it when Steve sucks Bucky's lower lip into his mouth, mindful of the thin ring piercing the middle. Bucky discovers just how soft Steve's skin is underneath his shirt; discovers the silver barbells through Steve's nipples, and the surprised sound he makes as he arches his back when Bucky sucks on them. He discovers that he's not the only one with tattoos; Steve's pectoral muscle and shoulder is a mass of birds and flowers. He kisses along the lines inked in his beloved's skin, and each gasp he brings from Steve's throat is a gift to be treasured.

Bucky turns his head and winces, just a little, as one of the pins in his hair pulls. 

“Let me,” Steve says, his voice rough with desire, and spends a few minutes pulling jewels out of Bucky’s hair, piling them up on the bedside table, undoing his braids, and stroking fingers through the locks until Bucky’s hair is a shining stream on the pillow, and he’s groaning with the feel of Steve’s clever fingers against his scalp, and Steve bends his neck to kiss over Bucky’s skin again. 

Bucky makes more sounds of his own, too, because the feeling of Steve's mouth on his skin is better than anything else he's ever felt. And that's a whole new discovery as well, because desire burning through his nerve endings feels the same in either shape, but his dick works a little differently. His dick in mer form is tidily tucked away, except for when it isn't; this dick is right there on the outside, where he feels constantly aware of it. Or maybe that's just because of the way Steve's pressed against him. He shudders all over his body when Steve strokes his erection through his jeans.

"No?" Steve murmurs, taking his hand away.

"Yes," Bucky says, and grabs Steve's wrist, puts his hand back. "It's good. It's just different."

"Yeah?" Steve smiles, and unbuttons Bucky's fly. Bucky thinks he might expire on the spot when his beloved gets his hand on his cock; skin to skin feels amazing, the pleasure mounting with what are, objectively, such small movements of Steve's hand. Steve kisses him and slowly jacks him, and it's only a few strokes before Bucky comes, head thrown back and spine arched against the soft, soft mattress.

Steve kisses his shoulder, and as Bucky comes back to himself, he realizes that Steve is stroking his own cock, and that won't do. He turns over so that he can kiss Steve, pushes Steve's hand away and replaces it with his own. The way Steve melts into him has him melting right back into Steve.

He slides his his fingers up and down Steve's cock, and every reaction Steve has is so intense, he wants to drink it all down, but the fact of the matter is that he's impatient too, hungry for more of the sounds that Steve's making, for the helpless movements of his hips as he rocks up into Bucky's touch.

His face when he comes rides the line between agony and ecstasy, a grimace that could be mistaken for pain. Bucky's hungry for that, too, the private look of his beloved lost to pleasure, pleasure that Bucky brought him to.

They're both very messy, Bucky's pleased to note. 

"I hope that was okay," Steve murmurs, his cheeks flushed, his eyes the blue of a clear sky with little flecks of ocean green. "I didn't mean to go so fast—"

That's a lot of nonsense, and Bucky kisses him to shut him up. "It was perfect," he murmurs. "I've been dying to get my hands on you since we met." 

Alas, there's not time for much more exploration than that, if they're to make it to the meal that Sarah invited them to, and it would take a much more churlish creature than Bucky to be late to that after the gift that she has given him.

The meal is delightful, and Sarah just as kind as her gift to Bucky would make her seem. The food is delicious, the company kind, and Steve and Bucky can't seem to stop holding hands under the table. When they leave, they go back to Steve's apartment, and there's more touching, and Bucky sleeps in Steve's bed, their legs (!) tangled around each other. In the morning, they break their fasts together, and the only shadow on Bucky's heart is that his time on land is almost up.

"You look thoughtful," Steve says. 

"It was a very good day," Bucky says softly. "I don't want it to be over."

Steve melts against him. It's the only way to describe the press of his body into Bucky’s that Bucky can think of. He tightens his arms around his beloved and cradles him to his chest. He's very aware of the pearl against his chest, over his heart; almost as aware as he is of the minutes ticking down. 

"It was an excellent day," Steve says, just as softly, then leans over to press a gentle, closed-mouth kiss against Bucky's lips. He savors it, just as much or more than the heated press of their bodies earlier. "The first of many excellent days, I hope."

Bucky touches the pearl at his neck unconsciously. "We can do this again?"

Steve surges forward at that, and this kiss turns fierce. "Yes, whenever you like. I think Ma said it takes a day or two to recharge, but however much time you want to spend here is how much time i'd like to see you."

"Whenever I like?' Bucky echoes. He can feel a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He wonders what he'd have to do to get a sea-witch to conjure up a similar pearl for Steve, so he could take him to his own home. "I'll be around so much you'll be tired of me."

"Never going to happen," Steve says, and kisses him again.

🧜🧜🧜


	4. Looking High and Liho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Okay, sir," Peter said dubiously, also not for the first time. "What I don't understand is why we’re the ones who have to find Ms. Widow's cat."  
> "Because we're the ones who lost her," the Winter Soldier said. He didn't exactly snap, but there were definitely stressed-out undertones in his voice. He had, Peter thought, sounded much less freaked out when Peter caught his arm at the airport in Germany.
> 
> ***
> 
> In which Steve and Bucky lose Natasha's cat, and somehow Peter Parker has to help them find her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the prompt for this one:
> 
> okay so i’m the anon with the steve, bucky, and peter head canon and i have another one. bucky and steve love the outdoors i mean they were kids in the 30s so they grew up outside a lot. so they would travel the alleyways of brooklyn (only for steve to get into a fight) and so when bucky came back steve decided to take him back to brooklyn in the alleyways that they would venture and then bucky would remember some more memories and he’d be like “hey you got into a fight with a stray cat here”😂
> 
> It got a little long, lol. The rating for this chapter is G. :D

Peter Parker wasn't sure exactly how he'd ended up here.

Okay, that was pretty much a complete lie, because Peter knew  _ exactly  _ how he'd gotten here. He'd ended up helping Mr. Stark with some things, and then with some other things, and then he'd gotten introduced to Captain America—admittedly, while they were fighting each other in an airport in Germany—but it turned out that the symbol of freedom and justice or whatever, didn't hold a grudge about the punching thing. Even if he did throw a truck at Peter—not like the Winter Soldier, who, on the whole, had been a lot gentler as an opponent.

But that was neither here nor now, since he wasn't fighting either Captain America or his best friend/former enemy/former brainwashed killing machine. Bygones, as Aunt May would probably say, if Peter had told her where he was going to be and what he was going to be doing, were bygones.

What he was doing was  _ not  _ getting into a) trouble, b) danger, or c) any kind of superhero-style shenanigans. The latter of which, at least, would’ve been all right with Aunt May. They had come to an understanding.

He wasn't sure how he was going to explain to her that he was out with two superpowered centenarian former—he was pretty sure anyway—fugitives from the law looking for the Black Widow's cat.

Why the Black Widow's cat was loose and hiding in alleys in Bed-Stuy was knowledge that he didn't, personally, have. All he knew was that they had to find the cat before either the Widow or Hawkeye—the old one, not the cool one—came back.

"Mr. America, I mean, sir—" Peter said.

"Please, Peter," Captain America said with a sigh, not for the first time. "This isn't a mission. Call me Steve."

"Okay, sir," Peter said dubiously, also not for the first time. "What I don't understand is why we’re the ones who have to find Ms. Widow's cat."

"Because we're the ones who lost her," the Winter Soldier said. He didn't exactly snap, but there were definitely stressed-out undertones in his voice. He had, Peter thought, sounded much less freaked out when Peter caught his arm at the airport in Germany.

"Psst psst psst," Captain— _ Steve  _ said down an alleyway. Peter and the Winter Soldier both stopped and stared at him. "It's what you say to call a cat," Steve said, apparently affronted.

"Liho's going to think you've lost your mind," the Winter Soldier said flatly, and Peter kind of agreed with him.

"Um, speaking of losing minds," Peter began, and then immediately realized this was not a tactful segue when both supersoldiers' heads swiveled to stare at him. "Wait—I mean—that's not what I—"

"Ask what you're gonna ask, kid," the Winter Soldier growled.

"Um, the last time I saw you, you were a fugitive, sort of, and Mr. Stark doesn't really like to talk about what happened after that, but he's never really been clear on how you much you remember, and it's not my business but I'm curious, because if you  _ don't  _ remember then how does this work?" Peter waved a hand between Steve and the Winter Soldier, trying to imply...whatever their relationship was. Mr. Stark had never really been too clear about that, either.

The two supersoldiers looked at each other, and did rock-paper-scissors. Steve got rock. The Winter Soldier got scissors.

The Winter Soldier sighed. "I don't remember everything. I don't remember most things. But I always remember Steve."

Peter shifted uncomfortably. "Oh. Okay, that's—" A little unnerving? Codependent? Peter wasn't sure how to finish the thought.

He opened his mouth anyway, but thankfully the Winter Soldier's phone rang at that exact moment. You wouldn't need supersenses to hear the Black Widow yell, "Why the  _ fuck  _ is my cat a quarter mile from the apartment building but you're still there?" but Peter  _ did  _ have superhearing so he got to suffer through the second-hand embarrassment as Captain Steve and the Winter Soldier tried to explain that the cat had gotten out through a window one of them—neither one would say who, but they all, including the Black Widow, Peter was pretty sure, knew that it was Steve—had forgotten to latch. In the background were sporadic bursts of what Peter was pretty sure was gunfire. The whole thing was excruciating and Peter pretended he wasn't listening, until the Widow said, "I know Spiderkid is with you. I'm sending him an app to download so you can track her," and then suddenly Peter was looking back at two sets of blue eyes looking sort of pleadingly at him, and his phone started beeping with an app he'd never downloaded—a tracker, apparently. 

The Black Widow hung up and there was a moment of silence as they all processed what had just happened and then the Winter Soldier cleared his throat. "Right. You've got the tracker, kid?"

"Do you, uh, know how to use it?" Steve asked.

"Um, it's pretty self-explanatory," Peter said, looking down at his phone. There was a green circle, which appeared to be Peter's phone, and a little red dot in the distance, which had to be Ms. Widow's cat. Both were superimposed over a map. "Pretty sure we just need to make the distance between these two get smaller."

"Yes, thank you Peter, I wouldn't have guessed that," Steve said.

"Mr. Stark never told me that Captain Steve was so snarky," Peter said, a little hurt.

"Mr. Stark wouldn't know," the Winter Soldier said. "On account of how he really never bothered to get to know Captain Steve." Steve shot the Winter Soldier a dirty look. "What? You know it's true."

"He had a lot of preconceived notions," Steve said, in the tone of voice of someone who was going to be scrupulously fair if it killed him. "But that's not what's important. What's important is whether the distance between our two dots is decreasing."

They'd been walking as they talked. Peter wasn't familiar with the neighborhood, and looking at Captain America and the Winter Soldier, he wasn't certain they were either.

"We're getting closer," Peter said.

The Winter Soldier let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. "Good. We'll get Nat's pet and Stark's pet, and we can lock them both up, including windows, until everyone gets home."

"Hey," Peter said.

"Everyone makes mistakes sometimes," Steve said defensively. "I like open windows. I like fresh air."

"I like secure perimeters," the Winter Soldier said. "I like not losing friends' cats." He dramatically sniffed the air, which was only fresh if you counted the smell of exhaust and garbage as fresh.

"Oh hey," Peter said hastily. "Looks like we're almost to her."

They had reached the entrance to an alley. It was dim, and there was a dumpster a little ways away, and there were puddles of what Peter hoped was rainwater on the asphalt. What there wasn't, or at least what wasn't immediately obvious, was a small black cat.

"Psst psst psst," Captain Steve said again, and the Winter Soldier punched him in the ribs, gently, as near as Peter could tell. Well, gently for a super soldier.

The Winter Soldier slid noiselessly into the mouth of the alley, and then paused. "Wait a minute," he said quietly. "Have we been here before?"

"I definitely haven't," Peter said.

The Winter Soldier rolled his eyes. It was kind of disconcerting how young it made him look. He went into the alley perfectly silently, Captain Steve and Peter trailing after him. The red dot and the green dot on the map were pretty much on top of each other, so Peter turned his phone off and slid it into his pocket, prepared to do some serious cat searching. Captain Steve opened his mouth and the Winter Soldier said, "Steve, if you make that sound one more time—"

"No," Captain Steve said, very quietly. "I think I see her."

He pointed and Peter sighted along his arm. There was indeed a small black cat huddled on a fire escape some ten or twelve feet off the ground. It had to be said that she did not look particularly ecstatic to see her rescuers, even Captain Steve and the Winter Soldier, who at least she knew.

"Okay," the Winter Soldier said. "We're going to need a can of tuna or something."

Peter was about to offer to run find a bodega when Captain Steve shook his head, set his very square jaw, and said, "No, it's okay. I think I can reach her."

"No, Steve, you complete dumbass, you're just going to scare her away—" the Winter Soldier said, but it was too late. Captain Steve was already launching his unnervingly perfect body at the brick wall in front of him, and his perfect body was winning the fight against gravity. Peter was a little offended that no one had remembered that he could literally stick to walls, but eh, they were pretty old, so they probably couldn't remember that much, like, in a row. He was pretty sure that was how it worked, not that he would ever say so in front of Aunt May, because he enjoyed his continued existence. 

Steve moved remarkably nimbly for such a big man, propelling himself from brick to brick to wrought iron in the blink of an eye.

"You're such a jackass," the Winter Soldier said in a slightly strangled but still fierce whisper.

"Psst psst pssst," Captain Steve said, ignoring the loud groan from the Winter Soldier.

Liho did not appear to be very impressed with either the catcalling noise or the over six feet of muscles that had suddenly appeared on the fire escape with her. Her fur stood up as she shrank away, and even from the ground, Peter could hear her hissing. None of this seemed to slow Steve down, and in seconds, he was holding a wriggling, hissing bundle of malice.

Peter fully expected the Winter Soldier to have a comment, but when he looked over, the Winter Soldier was leaning against the wall, shoulders slumped, metal hand held to his forehead.

"Mister Soldier, are you okay?" Peter said, and apparently that was all Steve needed to hear to get him to jump off the fire escape, arms still full of angry cat, with a dancer's grace, landing lightly next to them.

"Buck? Bucky?" Steve said. Peter wasn't exactly sure how he could tell that his body language was clearly both wanting to reach out to his friend and trying to hold Liho to his chest, but somehow, his posture conveyed both wants very clearly.

"I  _ have  _ been here before," the Winter Soldier said triumphantly. He pushed his hair out of his face and pointed at Steve. "You fucking fought a cat that time, too." He reached out with both hands for the cat. "Here, give her to me."

"Oh, are you good with cats, sir?" Peter said.

"Who can say," the Winter Soldier said, "but I've got a metal arm, and she's put a lot of holes in Steve just now."

"Bucky," Steve breathed. "You remembered."

He extended the armfull of cat to his friend, and the Winter Soldier took her, cradling her in his metal arm, and fishing what appeared to be cat treats out of a pocket.

"The real question is why Hydra bothered burning the memory of you being such a dumbass out of my brain," the Winter Soldier said. Steve beamed as though being called a dumbass was the pinnacle of his day.

"Why were you fighting a cat, sir?" Peter said.

"We came here to see a—jazz show?" The Winter Soldier looked at Steve for confirmation, and Steve nodded, his smile still wide and his eyes very obviously full of emotion. "Anyway, we were walking back to catch the train, and we hear this yowling from an alley, and if it wasn't this alley, it was its twin sister."

"It could've been this one," Steve offered.

"There's a raggedy dog snarling at something in the corner, and it turns out the source of the screeching is this little scrap of a mama cat with three kittens. Steve runs the dog off, but the cat is scared as hell, and obviously she doesn't know that we're here to help and not to hurt her kittens, so Steve's trying to make sure they're okay, but she's fighting him at every step, and he's yelling at her that he's just trying to help, only, of course, her being a cat, that doesn't calm things down any."

"We got her and all her kittens back to our apartment, though," Steve said. "One of those kittens stayed with us for years after that."

Peter looked at Captain America. Captain America had a big dumb grin on his face, and his eyes were impossibly soft as he looked at his friend. He was covered with dozens of tiny scratches on his neck and chest, and one across the square corner of his jaw, and all of a sudden, Peter had a vision of him as a young man, short and slight and cradling the cat that was fighting him, trying to help it.

"Oh God," Peter said. "You're just as big a disaster as I am."

Steve did a truly dumb set of finger guns at him. "It's amazing how few people figure that out."


	5. it's a long shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The clinks, they are shrinky! This chapter is rated T 
> 
> The prompt, from [ fanficmakesmehappy](http://fanficmakesmehappy.tumblr.com/), is: ‘All my intel said you’re not meant to be back until next week and I’m sitting here using your flat as a sniper nest to kill a bad guy. This is awkward.’ And immediately I thought this is perfect for shrinkyclinks, like can you imagine tiny Steve coming to his tiny apartment and Bucky just being like uhhhhhh, this is awkward.

Steve has been to enough conventions that he really shouldn't be surprised at the way this turned out. He'd scheduled two comic book conventions back to back, with not even enough time between them to go home. He's at the point in his career as a comic book artist where he's really starting to take off, and the networking opportunities at a convention can be incredible.

But it is a truth universally acknowledged that after the con, you get the con crud, and if you're Steven G. Rogers, slight of stature and weak of lung, it's practically inevitable that the crud from convention one will get you sick before it's time for convention two. He'd been able to scramble and get his friend Sam to run his booth at the artists' alley at the second convention, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn't disappointed to be missing it. He's gotten well-known enough that he was going to be on a couple of panels, and besides, he always liked meeting other artists and fans face-to-face.

But better safe than sorry--if he ignored this cold, it could all too easily turn into pneumonia, and besides, no one wanted to interact with him when he was sneezing and coughing his lungs out. The convention had transferred his membership to Sam, and Steve had added it on to the very long list of favors that he owed his friend.

So now, after hours of travel, a little hopped up on cold medicine, he turns the key in the lock to his apartment, thinking of nothing more pressing than making a cup of tea, taking a Theraflu, and then collapsing into bed for the next twelve hours, give or take. Steve can't decide if it's the cold, the cold medicine, the exhaustion from traveling, or maybe just that he's coming from a place where roughly half the people he saw all day were dressed up as various characters that makes him wonder if perhaps he isn't hallucinating for a moment when he sees the big burly man in what he can only describe as bondage gear straightening up from a crouch by his living room window.

"What the fuck?" Steve asks of the universe.

The man is tall and very, very broad. He has long dark hair, some kind of black paint smudged around his eyes, and is wearing an entire collection of leather straps and shiny buckles, like, all over his body. Literally everywhere. He's also, Steve can't help but notice, very heavily armed. There are knives and guns and stuff that Steve can't even identify strapped to every available surface on his body. And there is, as Steve noted earlier, a lot of available space. Even through the leather gear, Steve can tell that most of it is muscle. Body fat would probably be too frightened of this man to cling to places where the muscle is not. He definitely looks like he could throw Steve around, in like, a sexy and consensual way. If Steve weren't still congested, he would probably be more frightened and/or turned on.

"You weren't supposed to be home for another five days," the man observes.

"I got sick at the convention," Steve says, like an idiot.

"Well, this is awkward." The man glances back toward the window. "It's a funny story, about how I got in here, but I can pay you for the use of your window. I'm a photojournalist and your apartment offered the best line of sight for the…photograph I'm trying to take."

"Look, I'm not a photographer, but that's a rifle," Steve says. He doesn't know much about guns, either, but the thing on the stand by his window does not have a camera lens and nothing about it says "f-stop." It is long and black, has a trigger, and gleams dully in a menacing way. He doesn’t have to be an expert to know that that is a serious weapon meant to very seriously kill someone.

"Ah," the man in leather says. "Now it's even more awkward."

"Because you're going to have to kill me?" Steve says. The thought is concerning, but at least if he's dead there wouldn't be snot constantly dripping out of his nose. He’s going to need to grab a kleenex soon, if the bondage strap man will let him get one.

"No," the man says, sounding horrified.

"Look, it's a reasonable assumption to make," Steve says. He sets his suitcase down, and unslings his backpack off his shoulder, because both are starting to feel a little heavy. "I mean, given the circumstances."

"I don't do that anymore," the man says, and suddenly it all clicks.

Just like everybody else in America, and probably around the world, Steve had avidly read the files that the Black Widow dropped on the internet two years back, when it turned out that a quarter or so of the government were actually secret Nazis from World War II that everyone thought had been wiped out in 1945. There had been a lot of files about the Winter Soldier, and Steve, like everyone else with even a slight sexual attraction to men, had watched the video of the Soldier murder strutting over cars in the middle of DC on repeat. He figures he can blame the cold medicine, or maybe the shock of seeing all those guns, for not recognizing him.

There were a lot of people who wanted the Winter Soldier arrested for war crimes and whatnot, but since the Triskelion fell, he'd been working with the Avengers to eradicate the rest of Hydra, and, you know, fight evil self-aware robots or aliens or whatever other kind of weird shit the universe liked to throw at everyone.

"Okay, so you're the Winter Soldier, right?" Steve watches as the man's jaw clenches. "So I'm assuming that whoever you're pointing that at is a bad guy."

The Soldier's--James Barnes's, if Steve remembered correctly--shoulders drop just a little bit. "He's been experimenting with transplanting animal DNA into humans to try and make an army of fighters with predator instincts. Real Dr. Moreau shit. I mean, I guess it's for the best that so far he's mostly developed cat people who won't act as an army and in fact refuse to do a damn thing he tells them to, but it's not much consolation to the people who now have claws and cat ears and the violent urge to pounce, and he's made a deal with the feds where they're not going to arrest him, and--" He takes a deep breath and swallows. Maybe it's Steve's imagination that summons the gleam on his metal arm. "I don't like scientists who science on people without their consent."

Steve sniffs, trying not to interrupt what is in fact a very telling moment about this man's character with mucus or coughing. "Well, I can't argue with that. My window is your window."

"Wait, what?" the Winter Soldier says. "Really?"

"Yeah." Steve shrugs. "Look, I wouldn't want to be turned into a cat person against my wishes either. I'm going to make tea, take some cold medicine, and pass out. I don't need to know what happens while I'm unconscious, and if anyone asks, I can tell them that honestly."

Barmes looks at him, a strange light in his pale eyes. "You're not worried about me being here while you're helpless?"

"The word is asleep, not helpless," Steve says, affronted. "And...no. Not with how upset you got when i mentioned you killing me before."

"I wasn't  _ ups _ \--okay, yeah. I was upset." The Winter Soldier heaves a big sigh. "You're really just going to bed? You're leaving me here to do whatever I do?"

"I'm having tea and medicine first," Steve mumbles. "I don't feel all that great."

The Winter Soldier's forehead furrows as he looks at Steve. "Just take your medicine and get to bed. I'll get the kettle started if you're still awake."

"...Okay," Steve says. He really doesn't feel all that great. 

He manages to pop a few pills into his mouth and wash them down with a glass of water. He wishes he had tea, because he thinks the heat would help soothe his throat, but honestly, he doesn't see himself staying awake until the water boils. He goes into his bedroom and closes the door, toeing off his shoes but otherwise staying completely dressed. It won't be the first time. 

He drifts off, feverish and achey, but surprisingly unafraid of the man by the window. 

~o~

When Steve wakes up he's disoriented and his mouth tastes awful. He wonders if the man was just a hallucination brought on by exhaustion and illness. He feels a little better though--not as hot and not as achey. The sleep and the medicine have him able to breathe again, and when he swallows experimentally, his throat feels better. Still scratchy, still a little painful, but not nearly as bad at it was. 

"I think I'll have that tea now," he murmurs to himself, just to see how his voice sounds--deeper than usual, a little raspy, but not too bad. 

"Oh good, you're awake," a voice says from the other side of the door, and Steve nearly falls out of the bed in shock. The door opens, and a dark head pops through. 

The Winter Soldier has scrubbed the paint from around his eyes. He slides into the room and Steve is quietly devastated, because instead of combat gear, he's wearing skinny jeans and a tight blue sweater, with his hair pulled back, accentuating a very square jaw. It seems unjust that he can be so handsome both in leather and in a sweater. Steve doesn't deserve to have this level of hotness just shoved in his face right after he wakes up. He’s a sick man!

"Uh," Steve says.

"I made some food," Barnes says . "Whenever you're ready, it's ready." 

"Oh, um, okay," Steve manages. The door to his room shuts, and Steve takes a minute to process what just happened. Then he gathers a clean change of clothes and slinks into the bathroom for a shower. It seems deeply unfair that he's coming off a terrible cold and Barnes is so damn attractive, but that’s the universe’s sense of humor, he guesses. He showers thoroughly, letting the hot water spray beat some of the aches out of his back, brushes his hair with rather more care and product than he might have done otherwise, and shaves with actual attention to getting rid of his stubble, which honestly, he almost never does, because the fact of the matter is that his blonde beard barely shows up at all. But he wants his face to be perfectly smooth, for whatever reason. 

Okay, that's a lie. The reason is the hot man in his kitchen. It should probably be of more concern that he's an assassin, but...Steve's read his files. A lot of what he did was done under duress, and Steve can't be too mad about his current activities given the existence of weird fascist scientists trying to make actual cat people, what the fuck.

He braces himself for impact and opens the door to the kitchen. What he sees is even worse than before--Barnes (Steve can't think of him as the Winter Soldier when he's wearing a sweater that just about matches his eyes) is stirring a pot of--something on the stove. It's so domestic Steve wants to scream. Very loudly, and with feeling. 

"Are you feeling any better?" Barnes asks. 

"Much," Steve says. "Thanks."

"You literally don't have to thank me after I broke into your apartment to use it for illegal activities." 

"Is it illegal when one of the Avengers does it?" Steve wonders aloud. 

"Avengers adjacent at best," Barnes says with a wince.

"What are you making?" Steve asks to change the subject, because it seems that’s a sensitive one.

"Chicken soup," Barnes says, almost bashfully. "It's traditional for sick people, right?".

"Thanks," Steve says. "You didn't have to do that."

To his surprise and absolute delight, James Barnes, the Winter Soldier, internationally known and feared assassin and all around badass, looks at him and turns bright red. His face flushes, and somehow that only makes the blue of his eyes pop out more.

"Yeah, well…" He clears his throat. "You seemed like you needed a little looking after."

"Well, I appreciate it." Steve doesn't bother to hide his grin. "At least my nose isn't so stopped up now that I can't tell how delicious it smells."

Barnes bustles around, getting bowls and silverware out of the cupboards and drawers in Steve's kitchen. This is clearly a diversion to give his blush time to fade. Apparently, he did some exploring while Steve was asleep, in addition to wherever he went to change clothes and get groceries. Steve should probably be mad at the presumption, but in fact, he finds all of it terribly...endearing.

Barnes dishes out the soup, and the two of them pass a companionable meal together. The conversation is easy, and they keep it light, talking more about books and movies and music then, just for a random example that Steve can think of, any assassinations that the Winter Soldier might have just performed while Steve was taking a nap.

By the time they finish, Steve is calling Barnes  _ Bucky, _ at his own insistence, and Bucky has the kettle on for "lemon tea with honey and whiskey, it's what my ma always gave me for a sore throat," and Bucky insists on doing the dishes while Steve sits at the table and watches him. Steve knows he's going to fall asleep again soon, but he wishes he wouldn't, because he doesn't really wants this very strange day to end. He comes to a decision.

"Well," Bucky says, a little awkwardly, "I should probably head out. You need to get more rest, and I need to get out of your hair."

Steve smiles at Bucky and his cheeks go pink again. Interesting. Steve feels fortunate that he's probably still a little flushed on account of the fever, so Bucky won't be able to tell when he's blushing.

"Tell you what," Steve says and scribbles his number down on an index card. Bucky probably already knows it, considering that he knew enough about Steve's schedule to tell when his apartment would be empty, but Steve thinks of it as a courtesy to spare them both the embarrassment. "I probably have a few more days of feeling pretty shitty, but I really hope you'll text or call me so I have your number and when I'm feeling better I can ask you out."

"Ask me out?" Bucky's jaw drops, just for a second, and Steve thinks it's unfair that even his slightly dazed expression is still so cute. "Like…on a date?"

"Yeah, if that's something you'd be up for." Steve looks down just so he has the excuse to look up again through his lashes at Bucky. He has really long lashes, if he does say so himself, and he's been told that it's a pretty effective look on him. "Or if a date in public is too much, then you could come over here, and let me cook dinner for you, next time." 

Bucky shuts his mouth, his eyebrows creeping up his forehead. "I just don't understand why that's something you'd be interested in," he finally says. "I mean…you saw what I--" 

"If this is the part where you talk about your tragic backstory and how I shouldn't want to see you because of it," Steve says, "let me go ahead and cut you off at the pass. Like everybody else with the Internet, I know what you did, but I also know what you're doing now, and what you've been doing for years with the Avengers. It's a violent line of work, but sometimes you just gotta punch a Nazi." He shrugs. "Besides, I like you. Not whatever it is you did or do, but you. I like talking to you, I like the fact that you're kind--you didn't have to take care of me, but you did--and, look, surely you already know that you're easy on the eyes."

"Steve," Bucky says. He sounds a little strangled.

"Come on," Steve says. "I can't be the first person to ask you out."

"The first since about nineteen forty-four, yeah," Bucky says.

"Shit, seriously?" Steve takes a sip of his tea. He's not sure that he's into the flavor combination of lemon, whiskey, and honey, but he has to admit, it does make his throat feel better.

"You're not like anybody else I've ever met," Bucky says.

"Does that mean I can get your number?" Steve asks.

Bucky laughs. It's a really good sound. Steve wants to hear him make it again, as soon as possible, preferably. He pulls out his phone and taps in Steve's number. A second later, a text from an unknown number shows up, with the emojis for chicken, soup, and tea.

"Thanks," Steve says. "In two or three days, I'm gonna call that and ask you out."

And that's exactly what he does.

~o~


	6. tour bus + sharing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is a twitter meme where the prompt is a location plus a word. The chapter titles are the prompt. This is T.

It's always a little weird meeting new people on the way to the first show of a month-long run. Bucky's not usually nervous before a gig, but tonight he's going to be playing with the Howling Commandos, and, well, he thought, as a professional, he was over having musician crushes, but it looks like he's not.

He's branched out from purely classical violin over the past few years, playing with pop and rock bands, and he's played with bands who've been in the top forty and indie acts no one's ever heard of, but this is the Howling Commandos--he's had a thing for the lead singer for well over a decade, basically since the first time he'd heard Steve Rogers sing. And now he's getting to play with him. He has his duffel bag and his violin case slung over his shoulders, and a cup of coffee cradled in his hand. He's played along with the demo of the new songs they sent him until he could play his parts in his sleep, and maybe if he's lucky, he'll get to improvise along with a few old favorites.

He gets on the tour bus along with the crew and a bunch of other musicians, some of whom he knows from past gigs, and they nod at each other in greeting. It's early enough that he's really looking forward to drinking that coffee after he stows his stuff overhead.

The Commandos are up in the front of the bus, and Bucky doesn't know the etiquette so he just slides into an empty seat toward the back. There'll be plenty of time to get to know them--they have a week of rehearsals before the first show. The bus starts moving, and Bucky pulls up a book on his phone--it's this romance series about vikings that he's been digging. A shadow falls over him and he promptly closes the app right back up because it's at a spicy part and he doesn't know anyone here that well.

"Hey," says actual Steve Rogers, looming over him in a ripped t-shirt and a leather jacket, the light glinting off his lip ring, and Bucky's heart stutters so loudly that he's not sure that what he says back are actual words of greeting.

"I'm Steve," Steve says, which, _ duh, _ and then, "You're Bucky, right?"

Bucky manages to get out an affirmative, Steve tells him he's really been looking forward to playing with him, and then they both get out their phones for a bit. Bucky feels like he’s wasting an opportunity here, but he needs to chill out a little so he can make actual conversation. He looks out the window, and when he looks back, Steve has headphones in, and Bucky thinks maybe he didn't want to talk anyway.

Steve catches Bucky looking, and Bucky feels like a creeper, but Steve just breaks into a big sunny smile that makes Bucky's insides feel like taffy and pulls out an earbud, offering it to him.

Bucky puts it in his ear, having to draw a little closer because of the connecting wire. He can feel the heat of Steve’s body, feel the shared connection of the music between them, an old jazz album Bucky thinks is Vince Guaraldi. It's not what he'd have expected, and it makes him smile.

_ "Black Orpheus, _ right?" Bucky says, and the smile Steve rewards him with is even better than the last one.

"It's one of my favorite albums," Steve tells him, and all of a sudden, Bucky can talk like a normal person and not a crazed fan.

Maybe he didn't miss his chance to talk to him, after all.


	7. theatre + quiet, backstage + quiet, curtains + theater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last night of a show, Steve is feeling wistful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These prompts were all very similar, so I combined them. T

The last day of the show is always bittersweet for Steve. The end of a successful run is a cause for celebration, and yet it means that he won't be seeing the coworkers who've become his friends daily anymore, unless they have the good fortune to work on another play together. This show ending has Steve feeling especially melancholy.

And horny. He's definitely feeling melanhorny over the end of this show.

Steve has been blessing/cursing the fact that the director, Natasha Romanoff, had successfully pitched a revival production of  _ Hair. _ Was it a fun nostalgia show? Yes. Did the antiwar and environmental themes resonate with current events? Yes. Did the cast get entirely naked on stage every single night? Also yes.

Steve's not an actor. He's fine with that. Of course, actors come in all shapes and sizes, but he doesn't really relish the thought of his crooked spine and small stature in front of an audience. He loves the theater, though, and he's perfectly content to be part of the crew, making sure the props are in place when they need to be, making sure the set changes between acts the way it needs to, and helping the cast with the costuming--specifically, for this play, helping the cast get back into their costumes after the big naked scene at the end of act one.

Every night for the last six months, he's had to stare at the casts' naked sides and backs from the curtains on stage right. Specifically, Bucky Barnes's side and back. It's a good side, a very good back. There are a lot of muscles everywhere, and Bucky's usually sweating and panting a little from singing the final song in the act. Then Steve helps him back into his costume. It's torture, because Bucky is also kind and funny in addition to being so hot, and the way he talks to Steve is always a little flirtatious--but then, he talks to everyone that way. Steve was an admirer of his acting before this show, and now he's well on his way to being head over heels for a man he's not likely to see again any time soon. And let's face it--a man like that has probably already got a special someone locked down and is unlikely to be looking.

Steve loves the theater when it's empty like this. The audience is long gone and the cast and crew have mostly already left for the cast party. He runs a hand down the red velvet curtain he's spent so much time behind.

"What are you still doing here? Aren't you going to the cast party?" Steve jumps a little as the words echo through the quiet stage. Bucky's on the other side of the stage, looking at him quizzically. He's scrubbed clean of makeup and in his street clothes, and Steve doesn't think he's ever seen anything so good.

"Oh, yeah, in a little. I just needed a moment to..." Unwind. Be a little sad about the end of the show. Pine over Bucky Barnes.

"Yeah, I'm sorry it's over. I'm going to miss smoking oregano every night." Bucky's eyes crinkle. He walks out from the side curtain, and without thinking, Steve comes to meet him so they're in the middle of the stage.

"I'm going to miss looking at your naked ass every night," Steve says without thinking and then immediately wants to die. He wanted it to sound like a joke, but it came out too sincere. "I mean all your naked asses! Oh god." Steve covers his eyes. His cheeks are red, he can feel it.

"If you've been looking at my ass, you haven't even seen my good side yet." Steve can hear the laughter in Bucky's voice, and then a pair of warm hands wrap around his wrists and pull them away from his face. "And...if that's something you're interested in, maybe I could get a look at your naked ass too? I mean, I've got six months to catch up on."

Steve doesn't want to resist Bucky's hopeful face, so he leans up on his tiptoes instead and kisses him.

They miss the cast party, but neither of them minds. 


	8. lake + rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After graduation, Steve and Bucky take a trip to the lake. T

Sometimes Steve forgets that Bucky's family is, like,  _ rich  _ rich. But here they are, the week after graduation, spending a long weekend at Bucky's uncle's lake house. It's not that far out of the city, but it feels like another world: the private drive with the code, the fact that there are maybe ten houses on the whole lake, the outdoor kitchen where they'll be cooking tonight. The deck on the boathouse where they're sitting now, feeding the tame ducks. 

"Let's go for a walk," Bucky says. The sunlight brings out gold in his hair, lights the strong curve of his cheekbones and the curve of his shoulders beneath his t-shirt. Steve shouldn't look, but he can't help himself. He's never been able to keep his eyes off Bucky.

"Sure," he says, and tucks the sketchbook where he's lazily been penciling in the trees into the rocking chair on the deck. 

It's not a big lake--it doesn't have a name that Steve knows of, but Bucky laughingly refers to it as Lake Tadpole--and they're only maybe a quarter of the way around when the clouds that have been thickening all day suddenly turn into storm clouds and the bottom drops out. There's no sense running--they're already soaked--so they walk back together, laughing at how they're completely soaked and how dumb they are for not paying better attention to the clouds.

Steve's a little cold by the time the boat house looms in front of them; it's spring, and it was fine when the sun was out, but now that it's cloudy and he's wet, he can feel himself start to shiver. Bucky notices, of course. They always notice everything about each other.

"Hey, let's get inside where we can warm up," he says, trying the door. Steve tries and fails not to look too closely at the way the wet cotton of his t-shirt clings to the slope of muscle of his back. He's known for years now that he doesn't look at Bucky the way most people look at their best friend, and that's fine. It is what it is. Maybe the ache that's left its thumbprints on his heart for years will move on once they're both in college and he doesn't see Bucky every day. But for now, he guesses he'll wallow a little. He shivers; he really is starting to get cold.

"Fuck," Bucky mutters.

"What's wrong?" Steve wraps his thin arms a little tighter around his ribs.

"We're locked out. There's a spare key in the car..." Bucky glances toward the arch of the boathouse, where the rain is pounding into the lake harder than ever. Thunder splits the sky.

"It can wait." Steve smiles as convincingly as he can. "I'm fine."

"Steve, I can hear your teeth chattering." Bucky shoves a stack of towels off a wicker loveseat, sits down, and holds out an arm. "Come on, I promise I won't bite. Just till the rain stops."

Steve knows he shouldn't, but he's cold and it would take someone made of sterner stuff than he to resist that beckoning arm. He can out-stubborn any jackass, but someone being kind to him is his kryptonite, bonus points if it's Bucky. He sighs loudly like he's very put upon and then sits next to Bucky. Bucky gives him a slanted smile, then hooks his arm over Steve's shoulders and pulls him close. 

Bucky's warm, a line of heat along the side of Steve's body and over his shoulder, and sue him, it's cold. He leans into Bucky's side, and Bucky makes a contented noise that goes straight to Steve's heart. Steve slowly starts to warm up, and maybe he should move away, but it's so nice leaning into Bucky, listening to the sound of the rain around them. Steve melts into it a little, lets his head tip onto Bucky's shoulder, and Bucy's hand tightens around his bicep in response. 

Then Bucky absent-mindedly leans over and presses a kiss to Steve's temple.

They both freeze.

"Uh," Bucky says, and maybe if Steve weren't leaning against him, he wouldn't feel his every muscle tighten up, but he is, and he does. Steve turns into the warmth of him and puts his hand on Bucky's chest. His heartbeat is a rapid thrum beneath Steve's fingers, and his eyes are wide, and suddenly it's the easiest thing in the world to lean up and kiss him.

And then Bucky's kissing him back, and even though both of them are still wet and chilled, Steve's chest is full of warmth, and the sound of the rain against the boathouse closes them in a world for just the two of them. 


	9. beach + tiddies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gives Steve a gift at the beach. T

"I can't wear this," Steve says. The slap of waves across the shore is a soothing counterpoint to his mild horror.

Bucky sucks on his straw, slurping up the remains of his mango daiquiri. "I don't see why not. I had it made for you."

Steve unfolds the rashguard. When Bucky had said he was getting him a shirt to protect his pale skin from the Florida sun, he had assumed it would be a solid color, maybe some stripes or palm trees or something.

In retrospect, he doesn't know why he thought that.  _ Bucky's  _ rashguard is a nice, solid dark gray, covering up the metal arm that he still feels self-conscious about in civilian spaces.  _ Steve's _ rashguard is Captain-America blue, and it has two shields in the chest area, precisely positioned so that each star is centered over a nipple.

"You had it made," Steve says flatly.

"For you." The daiquiri makes another sad rattle as Bucky tries to get at whatever's left.

Steve sighs deeply, watching as Bucky's gaze sharpens and hones in on his chest. Well, Bucky's not shy about what he likes anyway.

Steve pulls off his t-shirt, and Bucky smiles broadly. "You could just go shirtless."

"I thought the point was to keep me from getting burned."

"That was  _ a _ point. It wasn't  _ the  _ point." Bucky reaches in their beach bag and pulls out a bottle of sunscreen. "If you want, I'll put your lotion on."

"I see," Steve says. Well, Bucky's hands on him is always a win-win situation for both of them, but this is a public beach. "You got it for me, I'll wear it," he says, and Bucky tosses the sunscreen back in the bag and watches Steve shimmy into the very tight rashguard. "I think it's the wrong size."

"Nope," Bucky says. "It's exactly right."

Steve looks down at his star-spangled nipples, clearly outlined by the tight fabric. He can feel himself blushing, but Bucky is smiling at him lasciviously, and he decides not to care.

In the end, it's a successful day of vacation. Steve doesn't get burned, and Bucky rips the rashguard pulling it off him when they get back to the hotel. 


	10. forest + tent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot Steve didn't learn at Basic.

"Jesus christ, Rogers, didn't they teach you how to do this in basic?"

Bucky's familiar grumble soothes something in Steve's soul, even though he's about to explode from frustration and his bull-in-the-china-shop hands have already broken two tent poles and bent one peg so badly they can't really use it.

"No," Steve says, and lets out an explosive sigh that comes from his soul and is much louder than he meant it to be.

"Fuck, really?" Bucky reappears from the other side of the lopsided canvas they're meant to stay in tonight.

"It was a compressed version of basic," Steve says, which what he considers to be maximum tact.

"How compressed?" Bucky's lips flatten into a line with which Steve is unfortunately familiar. It's the look of a Bucky Barnes who thinks Steve has not been careful enough with himself. It's a deep philosophical difference: Bucky for some reason thinks Steve's skin doesn't know how to heal, while Steve realizes that there are things worth bleeding and bruising for.

"Ten days," Steve admits reluctantly.

"Ten days--ten days?" Bucky drops the bag of tent gear, Steve assumes, that he's cradling in his arms. "I was in basic ten  _ weeks. _ What the fuck. What the fuck! What did they even have time to teach you? Tell me they taught you how to shoot a gun at least."

"Well," Steve says, and that's all it takes for Bucky to draw even with him.

Steve's still not used to Bucky looking up at him, but at least this expression is familiar. It's somewhere between tender and terrified, and Steve never understood it until he saw Bucky lying on a table in a factory in Kreischberg. Bucky's eyes dart from side to side, making sure no one else is in earshot or looking at them, and Steve knows they have to be careful, but he hates it.

"It's okay, sweetheart," Bucky says, barely a breath, only for the two of them to heart. "They should have shown you, but I'll teach you, don't worry."

Steve's hands clench around the canvas. He wants nothing more than to hold Bucky, but they can't. He guesses there's no better incentive to get the tent set up. "I'm not worried, Buck. Not about that."

Bucky takes in a deep breath, and Steve's own chest aches with it. "All right. Let me tell you how to start..."

It's not kisses, or Bucky's hand on his shoulder, but Steve knows love when he feels it. 


	11. balcony + fairy lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper's PA keeps helping Steve with gala events and public appearances. Steve's trying to keep it professional. Good luck with that. 
> 
> T

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these were all only supposed to be drabbles. Obviously that's not my strength, but this one got away from me WILDLY.

Steve was not at all fond of galas. He seemed to get roped into them anyhow, because his name was a draw to some of the people who tended to drop money on charities. So whenever Pepper set up one of these functions, Steve would put himself into a tuxedo and attend. He had done far worse, and in far more uncomfortable suits, after all.

But he didn't like it, when it came down to it. He didn't like being Captain America to all these people, because none of them ever had much interest in Steve Rogers. It was like having a picture taken with him or his signature scrawled over a glossy photograph that Pepper's PR interns always seem to have stacks of was some kind of prize they were angling for. Which was fine, he guessed; the culture of celebrity had certainly become an unstoppable beast while he was in the ice, but it wasn't like it didn't exist before that. He'd signed enough war bond posters in his day to be aware of that, and if it came down to it, he'd have been thrilled to get, say, Rita Hayworth's or Cary Grant's signature. It was what it was, and he was more or less resigned to it, but it also meant one of Pepper's interns being stuck by his side the whole night, and he hated that for them. Usually he hated it for himself too, because the kind of person that Pepper assigned to him was a starstruck late teen or early twenties kid who expected him to be--he didn't know; more exciting than he was, he guessed.

He didn't hate it for himself this time, though. The man in the suit that Pepper had introduced him as James was no star-struck kid. He was in his late twenties, maybe early thirties, within a few years of Steve's biological age either way, and he was, as they used to say in Steve's day, plenty rugged. He was maybe half a head shorter than Steve, with a broad chest and thighs that his suit pants strained against. He had shoulder-length dark hair pulled back into a little ponytail. His chiseled cheekbones and strong jawline were softened by full lips and pale blue eyes framed by long dark eyelashes. He had the kind of classic movie star good looks that were maybe the reason Steve was thinking of Cary Grant and Rita Hyaworth. It seemed highly unlikely that he was a PR intern, when it came down to it.

They hadn't really had a chance to talk yet, because people kept coming up to intercept Steve, but James was always quick with a sharpie and a glossy photograph of Steve looking stern and square jawed himself in his uniform. He also kept bringing Steve drinks--not just flute of champagne after flute of champagne, but bottled waters; and, to Steve's eternal gratitude, he pulled him off to the side at one point in the evening and shoved two plates full of the hors d'oeuvres that Steve had been wistfully eyeing all night.

"Here," James said. "I know I can't keep them off you all night, but you gotta eat."

"Thanks," Steve said gratefully, and inhaled a couple of tiny sandwiches.

"Yeah, of course," James said. "Pepper is  _ not  _ a super soldier, and if she doesn't eat at stuff like this she gets really cranky."

"You run interference for her often?" Steve asked.

"Sure," James said, the corner of his mouth ticking up into a lopsided smile that charmed Steve all too immediately. "I'm her personal assistant."

"Really?" Steve said, the words a little garbled by his mouthful of crab rangoon. "I thought an intern usually got stuck with this particular job."

It was dark in the somewhat quiet little alcove but Steve had vision better than most people's, and he was pretty sure James was blushing.

James cleared his throat. "I believe Ms. Potts thought that you might appreciate a higher standard of care. They all mean well, but…"

"Well, she was right." Steve smiled tentatively at James before he took a sip of sparkling water and tried a puff pastry with what turned out to be some kind of creamy cheese and sautéed mushrooms. "This has gone so much more smoothly than usual."

"Good," James said firmly, and then he refilled Steve's cup from a glass bottle of sparkling water. "So what do you do for fun when you're not Avenging or going to charity galas?"

"I like to watch movies when I have downtime," Steve said, not touching on how neither Avenging nor galas was particularly fun. Satisfying, in the one case, and godawful in the second, was more like it. "There've been huge strides in animation, and it's taking me a while to get caught up."

"What's your favorite?" Bucky asked, leaning forward.

"The one I watched most recently was  _ Princess Mononoke,"  _ Steve said.

"Oh, that's a good one," Bucky said. "Have you seen any other studio Ghibli ones?"

It was easy to tell him what he'd seen and what he hadn't, what was still on his list, and James had a few recommendations for TV shows that Steve hadn't heard of. It felt like far too soon that Steve finished his second plate of snacks and had to put his Captain America smile back on and go shake hands. James was at his elbow the entire evening, making sure that everything ran smoothly, not letting obnoxious people monopolize him for too long, and basically seeing to Steve's every need before he even knew he needed it.

The next charity event that Steve went to, James was back, smiling and greeting him more like he was a friend then a job. And the event after that, James was there again. Steve didn't know how, in an entire three to four hour event, the ten to fifteen minutes that he got to spend just with James became the high point, but it was. James looked out for him, made sure he didn't go hungry or thirsty or have too many people vying for his attention, but it was more than that. James talked to him like a person, was interested in what Steve had to think. He wasn't looking for a moment with a celebrity--Steve supposed that, working with Pepper and Tony, he had probably gotten over that some time ago--and he wasn't looking to capture his time with Steve like a trophy.

The next time Steve had to go to Avengers tower, the person leading him from meeting to meeting and putting papers into his hands was James.

"Pepper's got you assigned to me again?" Steve said and he wanted to make a joke of it, but the fact of the matter was, he liked that James was helping him out. He liked James, liked to talk to him, liked the way he treated him, and if he got to see more of him, that could only be a bonus in Steve's book.

"Unless you'd rather have someone else," James said, and his tone was joking but there was an actual question in the corners of his eyes.

"No, not at all," Steve said. That was the furthest thing from the truth. "I just feel like you've probably got other things you could be doing then looking out for me."

James smiled, a bright, wide grin that Steve hadn't seen before. "Other things I could be doing, sure. Other things I'd rather be doing? Not really."

That filled Steve with a warm, soft feeling, like he could put his hand to his chest and it would sink right in. He chose not to examine that feeling too closely, and said, "Lead the way then," and followed James to whatever he had to do.

It became a regular thing. If there was a gala, James was there to help Steve out. If there was any sort of Avengers paperwork that needed to be done, James helped him out. If there were visits to children's hospitals, or any kind of press meetings, interviews, public relations events, James--or Bucky, as he told Steve to call him a few months into their working relationship--was the one to run interference for Steve and make sure that all of his needs were met.

"If this is what it's like to have a personal assistant," Steve told Pepper at one point, "I don't understand why more people don't have one."

She smiled. "James is very special, isn't he."

Steve couldn't agree more. Bucky was special; caring and kind and, Steve wasn't able to stop himself from noticing, extremely handsome as well as built like a brick shit house. But they had a working relationship, and Steve didn't think that it would be fair to either of them to jeopardize it by putting some sort of unfortunately probably terribly subpar move on him.

Steve had, at one point, known how to make his intentions known to a man, but the last time it'd worked, it had been in the 1940s. He'd tried--very unsuccessfully--to hit on Sam Wilson, and it had failed so spectacularly that Sam hadn't even noticed until six months later, and only when Steve had mentioned that he was bisexual in a completely different context. It had been very embarrassing at the time and remained very embarrassing in retrospect. 

A lot of the cues were different from the ones he'd known before the war (and the casual encounters he'd had during the war were a whole other conversation,) and he wasn't sure he'd even know if Bucky were interested if he had met him, say outside of work. But it was work for Bucky, Steve reminded himself, even if he seemed to enjoy it--seemed to enjoy Steve. He resolved to just enjoy the time he had with him and let thoughts of anything else remain just thoughts.

It sort of worked.

It was made more difficult when he and Bucky started occasionally catching a movie together, or watching some of the many shows that Bucky thought Steve should watch. They were friends now, Steve thought, real friends: you didn't just hang out like this with coworkers, or god forbid, assignments. But it made it murkier for him when he'd turn his head and catch Bucky mid-laugh over the bowl of popcorn between them and a pang would catch in his chest. He's wanted to do something like stretch his arm out and let it fall over Bucky's shoulder, which had been an old and cheesy move even in his day, but he was a grown ass man, and he didn't want to make a move where it wasn't wanted. He valued their burgeoning friendship too much to want to risk it. So he just watched, and yearned quietly.

Until Pepper's New Year's Eve party.

This one wasn't going to be a charity event so much as an excuse to party and drink a lot of champagne. Steve knew that, and he was fine with it, even though it meant he sadly didn't need a handsome personal assistant trailing him all night. He didn't even know if Bucky was going to be at this particular event. That didn't stop him from putting on his tuxedo and combing his hair with attention to how it looked. Natasha had pointed him toward some products that, in her words, would hold his hair in place but not feel terrible if someone were to run their fingers through it. Not that he had any expectations of any finger running, but he had to admit it did look nice if he wore it just so.

This was not a private Avengers event. Tony--and, of course, Pepper--had invited any number of people, both friends and work related. It was on one of the lower floors of Avengers tower, not the more private accommodations that Steve was used to visiting with the Avengers. But he'd gotten familiar with the big ballroom, too, over the last several years, and he supposed he could handle himself without Bucky at his side for one night.

He got a glass of champagne and tried not to look too bored. None of the other Avengers were there that he could see, besides Tony. Natasha was probably already there and mingling, Clint was probably late, Thor was, sadly, off planet, Bruce most likely had just said no, and Tony was busy mingling with his guests. Steve drifted off to the hors d'oeuvres table, because if nothing else, he knew the food was always going to be good.

He had only just made a small plate when a familiar presence appeared at his side.

"Bucky," Steve said, delighted. "I didn't know you were working tonight."

Bucky laughed. "I'm not. I'm here as a guest." Steve couldn't help the big grin that spread across his face. He was tempted to say something like  _ if you're here as a guest, then you don't have to stick around with me _ , but if he said something like that, Bucky might listen to him and leave, and he couldn't have that.

They didn't stay stuck to each other's sides all night--the other Avengers did show up eventually, and there were people that Bucky knew also, but they kept drifting back to each other. It was natural, Steve thought, to want to talk to someone you already knew, and knew that you had a good rapport with. So why did it make him so unreasonably happy every time Bucky returns to his side, the two of them drawn together like magnets?

At about 11:30, they refilled their champagne flutes, and Bucky said, "Hey. I know a good place to watch the fireworks. You want to see?"

"Sure," Steve said, heart suddenly picking up speed. Bucky led him through a hallway into the kitchen, back by the service elevators, down another hallway, and out of a door which led to a balcony.

It was cold as the wind whipped around them, but the view was enchanting, and Steve couldn't find it in himself to care. The streetlights below them twinkled like the stars they couldn't see above, and the streets were thronged with people. They were too high up to hear anything but the faint thump of music and the occasional roar as people yelled something celebratory at each other. Someone had wound bright white fairy lights around all the railings, and they shone, too, not as bright as the lights below, but more intimate.

They toasted each other silently as they took in the view. After a few minutes, Bucky shivered, and said, "It's colder than I thought--we should get back inside so we can watch the ball drop with everyone."

If Steve felt a twinge of disappointment, he kept it to himself. It was cold, and Bucky no doubt felt it more strongly than he did. "It's beautiful, Buck," Steve said. "Thank you for showing me."

Bucky smiled at him, but his smile quickly dropped away as he tried the door. "Oh fuck," he said. "We're locked out." He patted his suit pockets frantically, and pulled his ID card out of his pocket. "It's supposed to work without directly touching the pad--" He pressed it against the security lock, and not a light came to light, not even a red one.

"It's okay," Steve said. "I'll call Pepper and let her know we're locked out."

"Is she even gonna hear her phone in all this?" Bucky said.

"I'll call Tony too. Or wait, Jarvis," Steve assured him. He pulled out his phone and tapped the icon that would connect him to the AI. "Jarvis," he said. The AI didn't answer. Steve frowned. That had never happened before. He left messages for Tony and Pepper regardless. He turned to Bucky, who was anxiously biting his lip. "If worse comes to worst, I'm pretty sure I can break the glass." 

Bucky shoved his hands into his armpits. "I guess all we can do is wait, huh?"

"Yeah," Steve said. He hesitated, but--fuck it. "Hey, if you're cold…" He held out an arm. "I run pretty hot."

Bucky looked at him for a long moment, then moved to his side. Steve wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close. Bucky burrowed into him, and it made Steve's heart expand almost painfully. It was exactly what he'd wanted when he was considering that stupid arm stretch on any of their platonic dates: Bucky's body solid and warm against him, the feel of his muscles firm but somehow still giving beneath his suit jacket. If only it were happening because Bucky wanted it to, not because it was fucking freezing out.

"I'm sorry we're missing the big countdown inside," Bucky murmured.

"I'm not," Steve said softly. "I like it out here, with you."

Bucky looked at him. There was something soft and questioning in his expression, and Steve wasn't sure what he was looking for, but Steve wanted more than anything to give it to him.

"What if there was someone you were hoping to kiss at midnight in there?" Bucky said, looking up at him through those long, dark lashes. Steve's heart was suddenly beating so hard he could feel it in every pulse point. When he spoke, his voice sounded deeper even in his own ears.

"There's not," he said. And then, because maybe he was reading this wrong, and maybe Bucky was just flirting with him because he was cold and full of champagne, but Steve didn't think so. "The only person I want to kiss at midnight is already standing right here with me."

"Oh," Bucky breathed, barely audible. He reached up and brushed his cold fingers against Steve's jaw. He slid his hand to the back of Steve's hair and buried his fingers in it, then tugged Steve's head down. Steve had a frantic moment to hope that the gel was as touch-friendly as Natasha had said, and then all he could think about was how close Bucky was to him, how big his eyes were, looking up at Steve.

Who was Steve to resist, when his every wish had just been granted? He slid his other arm around Bucky, pulled him close, and kissed him. His lips were soft, his chest felt just right pressed against Steve's, and their noses were cold where they touched. It was the most perfect moment Steve could think of, so much better than hovering awkwardly by the buffet while the ball dropped. Distantly, he could hear people's voices counting down to midnight, but really, he couldn't care less about that.

It was just after midnight when the doors finally popped open along with Jarvis's smooth voice saying, "Sorry for the delay, gentlemen."

"Oh," Steve said, feeling Bucky's hands tucked in close under his shirt, against his warm skin. "It's really all right."

~o~

When Bucky returned to work after the holidays, it was with a spring in his step and a smile on his face. And, it had to be said, a little bit of a stagger in his step as well, because frankly one doesn't have that much sex with a supersoldier without developing a bit of a hitch in one's getalong.

But as he pulled up Ms. Potts's planner and got ready to see what was already scheduled and what needed to be scheduled, he found himself whistling, which was frankly a level of cheer that the workplace had never seen from him, brought on solely by the fact that he was seeing Steve again today after work.

"Am I to deduce that your holidays were successful?" the smooth British electronic voice of Jarvis said from his computer.

"They were indeed," Bucky said, feeling frankly smug about it.

"You're welcome," Jarvis said.

"What?" Bucky's focus had been half on Jarvis and half on the planner, but suddenly, Jarvis had his full attention.

"You didn't think the doors stuck like that on their own, did you?" Now it was Jarvis's turn to sound smug, and that was frankly intolerable in an artificial intelligence. "Happy New Year, Mr. Barnes."

Well if Jarvis wanted to be smug about it...let him. He'd actually done Bucky quite a solid. Who knows how long it might've taken him to get his courage to ask Steve out otherwise? Bucky turned back to the planner, and tried to keep his obnoxious happiness to a quiet hum. 

Bucky had the feeling it was going to be a really good year. 

~o~


End file.
